January 23, 2008

There has been quite a lot of difference in my life after coming to Hyderabad. The 13 km one-side drive in horrible traffic has now become 3 km saunter-like bike ride on wide open roads. The earliest person to leave office is now putting long working hours. The weekends that were spent with close friends are now quite lonelier with little or no activity. Frequent trips and some night-outs at IIIT Hyd with old friends have been freshening, giving me an old familiar feel of college life and hostel that sometimes I yearn for. Food, that kept me entertained for most of the time, has now become a need-based requirement and I often miss out on that! With the choice(?) of just one caterer in office, I have become selective(?) about food or lack thereof. Yeah, high proportion of McD and KFC burgers have kept me weighing the same and luckily, the fat hasn’t started showing up yet. I might frequent to ground-floor fitness centre, the moment I see an iota of fatty skin hanging somewhere.

I don’t like staying up late in office. I often stay beyond times, which I never thought of spending in cubicle, either working, or dilly-dallying with some peculiar kind of problem. I can’t imagine myself sitting in office beyond 8 PM regularly. when I’m married with many kids. A good work-life balance is of utmost importance, to anyone who can see beyond cryptic codes, balance sheets and board room meetings. American companies become a difficult proposition as they outsource a lot of work(often back-end) with stringent deadlines to deal with. The time difference of almost 12 hrs is good and bad, good that work goes 24 hrs around the globe and bad when people need to sync up together then someone has to spend nights in office and generally they’re us Indians. After all, money matters for ordinary man.

There has been revival of interests in my life. Apparently, I’ve become a grandiose cell-phone talker and I have started believing that pre-paid is cheaper than post-paid. (There are full talktime cards and Re1 schemes, why was I paying so much rental and 12.36 % tax all these years?). Scrabble, how much I loved it when I was a kid!! Though I didn’t play it enough in those younger years, I’m making up for it now on Facebook’s Scrabulous :). Sadly, there is a bit of fight over it and hopefully scrabulous will remain afloat. I’m eagerly waiting for Adelaide test now. This Aussie-India series have become a real battle, though a bit ugly at times, but it has invigorated the seemingly dull game. Cricket has become interesting again! And just like it, a few other things too!